Queen Elizabeth incorporated West Looe 14th February 1574, in the sixteenth year of her reign, by the name of Mayor and Burgesses of the Borough of Portbyhan, otherwise West Looe, in the county of Cornwall. Twelve chief burgesses were appointed by this charter. The mayor is elected from the Chief Burgesses, by their votes and the votes of the Free Burgesses, on Michaelmas-day annually, between nine and twelve of the clock in the forenoon, and then sworn into office. The mayor is also a Justice of the Peace, as is likewise the steward. The mayor has no power to appoint a deputy. The steward, however, has such an authority; but his deputy is not a Justice of the Peace. WEST LOOE DOWN.――GIANT’S HEDGE OR MOUND. Just above the houses (the intermediate space filled up with gardens and orchards) is a common or down, called West Looe Down, of near a hundred acres, on which are the remains of a mound of earth that runs many miles across the country, and is noticed by Borlase, who, from its extent and other circumstances, supposed it to be a Roman work. His account of it as follows: “That the Romans had ways in the eastern parts of the county about Loo and Lostwithiel, the following antient work, shewn me by the Rev. Mr. Howell, Rector of Lanreath (June 25 and 26, 1756), will abundantly confirm. It is called the Giant’s Hedge, a large mound, which reaches from the valley in which the Boroughs of East and West Looe are situated, to Leryn, on the river Fowey. It is first visible on West Looe Down, about two hundred paces above the Mills; whence it runs to Kilminarth Woods; from and through them to Trelawn Wood, about three hundred paces above Trelawn Mill; then through Little Larnick to the barton of Hall, in which there are two circular encampments, about four hundred paces to the north of it; thence quite through the said barton, making the northern boundary of fields to the glebe of Pelynt Vicarage, called Furze Park; then cross the barton of Tregarrick; and thence, through the north grounds of Tresassen and Polventon, to the glebe lands of the rectory of Lanreath, where I measured it seven feet high and twenty feet wide at a medium; thence it stretches through the tenement of Wyllacombe to Trebant Water; whence it proceeds, through the barton of Longunnet and some small tenements, to Leryn; from which there is a fair dry down, called St. Winnow Down, leading north along to Lostwithiel. This risbank, or mound, ranges up hill and down hill indifferently; has no visible ditch continued on any brow of a hill, as intrenchments always have; there is no hollow, or foss, on one side more than the other; it is about seven miles long, and tends straight from Looe to Leryn Creek, in the direct line from Looe to Lostwithiel. By all these properties, its height and breadth, in wanting the fosses of fortification, its straightness and length, the grandeur of the design, and the labour of execution, I judge that it can be nothing less than a Roman work.